“Face it,” Joshi grunted. “We’re stuck.”
She knew he was right, but she refused to accept it Not after all this time, not this close, not with the mountains that led into Gedemondas only a few dozen kilometers away. It couldn’t end with her locked in a cage, finally to wind up as an experimental pork chop when it became clear to these people that there would be no breeding.
“Maybe we can work out a way to talk to them,” Joshi suggested. “After all, we did it with those on the ship.”
“With what?” she responded. “No pencil, no paper—and nobody here who could, read what I wrote, anyway. Not even dirt to scratch out a symbol for them. But don’t give up yet. Something will happen to give us a break.” She tried to console him.
He wasn’t convinced, and, truthfully, neither was she. The only trouble was, everything suggested they had pushed their luck once too far. Always in her colorful past when she’d gotten into hopeless situations something had miraculously happened to get her out. Even when she’d crashed on this world so many years ago by flying too low over a nontech hex, something had happened. She’d had Renard and Nikki Zinder with her, both sinking fast on sponge, their minds rotting before her eyes. Then, captured by Teliagin Cyclopes who chewed on sheep and placed in a prison just as secure as their current cage—and with the same fate awaiting them—she’d been rescued by the Lata.
It had always been that way. Trapped on New Pompeii, she’d been given what she needed by the computer, Obie, to get her out—the complete schematics of the private little world in her head, still there somewhere. Obie also gave her the necessary codes to bypass Trelig’s system of roving robot killer satellites. All her life… When her native world had gone Com, that mysterious freighter captain smuggled her out, and Maki Chang took her to grow up in space. Kindly beggars had taken her in and helped her along when Maki was picked up. Gimball Nysongi took her out of the whorehouse in the spaceport dives of Kaliva and gave her a ship, the stars, skills, and a measure of happiness when all had seemed so hopeless. Then, even after Gimball was killed, and she’d continued on her grand thefts of the Com, there was always something whenever things became impossible, lucky breaks that kept her from ever being caught or convicted of anything. Always something.
She had again and again gotten away. She had come to expect it, waited for the improbable to happen, the nick-of-time hair’s-breadth escape—even though, back in the darkest recesses of her mind, she knew that one day it wouldn’t happen.
But this wasn’t the day, she told herself, making herself believe it. She couldn’t believe it.
However, she admitted ruefully, whatever was to save her would have to come from outside unless some better opportunity presented itself here. For now, she could only lie down and seek respite from the dry heat in sleep.
The sun was setting. In a few more minutes the long shadows would overtake the PGU as it steamed and lurched around the oasis-town and plunge the area into darkness. Already kerosene lanterns had been lit in the streets of the little town, visible as dull glows from the PGU watchtowers. There was little added risk from them. Any enemy would know where the town was by the smell of water. They would also know the general whereabouts of the PGU by its hissing, clanking, and belching; but there was no purpose in offering an extra bulls-eye for any eager cannoneers. The thing stayed dark.
Mor-ti had replaced Ti-gan on the con; she had much better night vision, although far less distance perception, than he, and so was better suited to the conditions. There was less threat at night, oddly enough. As Mucrolian night vision was so poor, an attacker would be approaching over unfamiliar terrain heavily guarded by the defenders. Though such an attack had been known to happen, the PGU relaxed a little; most of the people had been allowed to visit the water hole, leaving only the night guard aboard.
Again that sixth sense that marked the best lookouts came into play. Mor-ti couldn’t put her finger on it, but there had been some sort of discord in the gathering gloom, and she signaled the engine room to slow.
A breeze was blowing from the west, off the distant sea. It was a bit stronger than the average sea breeze that cooled the length of the coastal plain at dusk, throwing the cloud of smoke from the stack almost at right angles to the stack lip.
Her ears strained to hear through the rumble of the idling engines and the hissing of the boilers. Something was out there, something both odd and wrong.
She blew into the speaking tube and got a response. “Two scouts up top,” she ordered. “Something funny here. Keep pressure up. We may—”
Before she could complete the statement there was a series of reports to her right, quickly followed by a series of whistling roars all around the PGU.
“All crews to action!” she screamed into the tube. “We are under attack! Let’s gun it! Zigzag pattern!” The PGU roared to life and began a series of defensive course changes; Mor-ti pulled armored shielding around her spotter’s perch and peered out from eyeslits.
More reports, and more explosions, closer now, all around them. Little bits of metal went ping, ping, ping as shrapnel bit at the steel flanks of the PGU. All around the huge steam tank the ground was erupting in explosive columns of heat and light.
Observers forward and aft tried to spot the flashes from the attacking PGU, for that was what it had to be. A spiked cannonball struck the PGU and detonated, causing tremendous concussion and vibration. The defenders screamed in rage and frustration.
“Hard right and scatter-shot!” Mor-ti commanded. “Let’s see if we can smoke them out.”
Ports fell with a clang from one side of the PGU, and as the vehicle turned sharply a series of cannon reports shook it again, this time the result of an outgoing volley of eight shots into the deepening night. They landed in a wide group and went off with a roar, their phosphor-gels load lighting up the countryside.
Mor-ti thought she spotted the enemy juggernaut in the dying light of the flare shells. She gambled on this and aimed her PGU where she felt the enemy was. The angle of fire showed her to be right; the new volley passed directly over her craft and struck a hundred meters to the rear.
Suddenly the enemy commander realized that he was being charged; he turned his black-painted craft and raised a nasty, sharp device on the front that looked much like a great can opener.
The defender was bearing down at full speed, which meant that he would need a good quarter-kilometer to turn fully, so the attacker slowed almost to a crawl and waited, his guns suddenly silent.
As the defender approached, it passed just to the right of the attacking armored craft. Suddenly, the attack commander screamed “Full ahead and hold!” into his speaking tube, and his PGU lurched forward with a roar.
The timing was almost perfect. The attacker struck the side of the defending PGU, not quite midships as he’d hoped but a bit behind, the great sharp corundum blade on the front ramming into the rushing defender.
The steam vents of the stricken PGU screamed as if living things; a boiler had been struck and Mor-ti’s wounded craft jumped, then lurched slowly into the darkness. The attacker yelled “Feed kerosene!” into his speaking tube as his PGU lumbered immediately behind the slowed defender.
The enemy commander tried to keep pointing forward at the tear in the other’s armor, angling for a good flamethrower shot.
The technique was tricky; the pressure in the flamethrower tube could not be held indefinitely, the PGU itself would have to do the aiming, and once the kerosene was ignited it would make them a perfect target.